How does Perfect Diary, a company worth hundreds of billions of yuan, manage private domain traffic?

A word of caution: The launch of Perfect Diary has indeed greatly stimulated many people, but after seeing many points, many people also want to know the success and characteristics of this brand. As a learner, after studying and sorting out, the author feels it is necessary to organize it into a text, as follows:

Perfect Diary is currently valued at US$13.3 billion. It took only four years from its birth to its listing on the U.S. stock market. How long does it take for a traditional beauty brand to go from obscurity to listing?

Shanghai Jahwa: Its predecessor was the Hong Kong Kwong Sang Hong established in 1898 and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2001, a total of 103 years;

PROYA: Founded in Hangzhou in 2006, PROYA was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on November 15, 2017, after 11 years;

Yujiahui: Founded in 2012, successfully listed on the A-share market in 2018, which took 6 years;

What is enviable is that as entrepreneurs themselves, why are they so lucky? It took only 4 years to become the "No. 1 Chinese Beauty Stock", which is undoubtedly the best proof that "choice is more important than hard work"!

From the initial promotion on Xiaohongshu, to endorsements by popular celebrities, precise traffic delivery, and community marketing by Xiaowanzi with an independent personality, we have used the community to accumulate female users, established a private traffic pool of millions through the combined operation of WeChat official accounts, mini-programs, and communities, and effectively completed conversion and monetization. In the fiercely competitive beauty industry, sales soared 50 times in 8 months, and Perfect Diary achieved a turnaround in just two years. Private domain traffic was a huge boost to Perfect Diary's success.

Today, I will analyze Perfect Diary’s “private domain traffic” operation for you. The article is mainly divided into three points:

1. Seize the platform traffic dividend and lay out private domain traffic in advance

2. Establish a private traffic pool and use multiple means to promote repeat purchases

3. Perfect Diary’s product highlights and reusability

I believe everyone is familiar with private domain traffic. In recent years, especially in 2020, people have been talking about the first year of private domain traffic, and major brands have started to do this. Private domain traffic is relative, referring to channels that we can directly reach users at any time and frequency without paying, such as: self-media, user groups, WeChat accounts, etc. Back to the topic of the article, and continuing to talk about Perfect Diary’s rise, the author believes that it is entirely due to seizing the platform’s traffic dividend and daring to be the first to “enter the pit” and “occupy the pit”.

We can see the relevant data of Perfect Diary on various platforms:

Xiaohongshu: Perfect Diary was founded at the end of 2017. As of November 2020, the total number of fans is over 1.955 million, which is far greater than the number of fans of other European, American or domestic beauty brands. It is reported that L'Oreal has only 290,000 fans.

Douyin: As of November 2020, Douyin has more than 3.48 million fans. From the author's analysis, Douyin and Xiaohongshu complement each other, focusing on real-person color testing, plus product reviews and some non-beauty account promotion.

Weibo: The official account has over 300,000 followers, among which the Metropolitan Museum of Art co-branded product endorsed by popular star Zhu Zhengting has been discussed in 120,000 topics initiated on Weibo and has been read 140 million times. While Perfect Diary uses co-branded products to enhance its brand style, it also increases the brand's talking points and attracts consumer groups from multiple circles, killing two birds with one stone.

Bilibili: There are about 3,000 related submissions, mainly product color trials, reviews, recommendations and makeup tutorials.

In terms of advertising, Perfect Diary has almost 360-degree coverage of mainstream platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, and has also reaped the first wave of fan dividends. It must be said that it chose the right time for public domain advertising.

In 2017, Perfect Diary completed a trial launch; in 2018, it began to reap some benefits on Douyin. When it was preparing to expand its launch in 2019, it happened to catch up with the traffic dividend of Douyin's establishment of a number of brand benchmarks. This makes Perfect Diary's investment in becoming a household name, which is estimated to be less than one-tenth of that required on traditional television media.

When it comes to public domain traffic, there are three main characteristics:

<1> There will be some platform dividends in the early stage of the platform, and the traffic cost is relatively low;

<2> As the platform matures, traffic costs will become higher and higher;

<3> Eventually the platform will become a channel to collect tolls;

For merchants, if they enter a good platform early and operate properly, they will get good benefits. However, if you join the platform during its mature stage, you will not have an advantage in traffic costs, and you may even have to pay high tuition fees because you do not understand the rules. However, private domain traffic is a necessary supplement to public domain traffic, and currently there are still dividends for private domain traffic based on the WeChat system. Therefore, it is a general trend for businesses to make up for the shortcomings of their private domain traffic as soon as possible. The most direct benefit is that it can save the channel costs of regular customers and directly increase the profit level. At the same time, turning regular customers into your promoters and achieving fission sales can expand the customer base. In addition, the accumulated data can be used to explore more commercial value.

Then the question is, how to convert "public domain traffic" into "private domain traffic"?

Simply put, it is to direct the traffic of large platforms to private WeChat. Let’s take the example of Perfect Diary’s transfer from its e-commerce platform to WeChat to see the specific operation process:

1. When customers purchase Perfect Diary products, they will receive a "red envelope card" along with the package. Scratch the layer to get a special password;

2. You need to scan the QR code to follow the official account;

3. Immediately trigger the personal account QR code to fans after following;

4. After adding your personal account, you will receive a mini program QR code;

5. Scan the QR code and enter the password to receive a 1-2 yuan red envelope.

This card has two features:

① Anthropomorphic image. Xiao Wanzi is an anthropomorphic design. Compared with the commonly used Taobao customer service method of adding Taobao stores to receive cashback, this anthropomorphic cartoon design is more concrete and friendly. Their target is young women aged 18-28, so this cute image greatly reduces users' resistance.

② High prize cashback attracts attention. A common tactic used by Taobao stores is to add customer service staff and give 3-5 yuan cash back for positive reviews. However, many users will not add a WeChat friend for a 3-5 yuan cash back, while the appeal of sharing a million-dollar cash red envelope and exclusive gifts is far different.

From this perspective, it only costs 1-2 yuan to get a public account fan, a personal account friend, or a group member, which is really cost-effective.

Perfect Diary also uses offline stores to continuously direct users online. From January 2019 to the end of January 2020, Perfect Diary opened a total of 54 stores, concentrated in first-tier cities in the south and new first-tier fashion cities in the inland. Users who come from offline stores can scan the QR code to add the personal account of "Xiao Meizi", and then find the BA to receive the beauty egg. After that, the user will be invited to join the group and follow the service account.

The power of traffic conversion from offline to online brought by these stores cannot be ignored. It turns out that Perfect Diary’s online advertising can only get users to place impulse orders once on the spot. After establishing private domain traffic, "Perfect Diary" can repeatedly reach customers through WeChat Moments and communities, and generate conversions or repeat purchases through live broadcasts, big promotions, and lucky draws. This offline channel traffic diversion method has not only attracted the attention of leading players who have quietly entered the market, but many micro-businesses and new media experts are also delving into this field. Because in the future, everyone has the potential to become an individual, freelance worker. You need to have resources and customers. Private domain traffic is a great model for building your own customer base.

Perfect Diary has also added a "Liao Xiao Wanzi" column to the bottom menu bar of its official account. Clicking on it will redirect you to a personal WeChat QR code, where the channel's active code is enabled. The channel's active code refers to a channel's active code with parameters. It is automatically labeled after adding and can be used to divert traffic when adding fans through different channels. Companies can customize the creation and management of active codes for different channels, and support deletion, editing, and modification.

The live code will be randomly assigned to the WeChat account of Perfect Diary’s community operator. Guide users to add "Xiao Wanzi"'s personal WeChat and settle users in the personal account's private traffic pool. After being added to "Xiao Wanzi", the user will receive an invitation to join the group. If the user does not join the group after adding Xiao Wanzi, he/she will receive a reminder to join the group again, which will guide him/her to enjoy benefits and flash sales.

Compared with personal WeChat, the number of WeChat friends that can be added by a single ID in Enterprise WeChat has exceeded the limit of 5,000. After expansion, the number can reach hundreds of thousands. It provides official capabilities such as labeling, group messaging, and statistics, and there is no need to use gray market tools anymore. In addition, adding customers to corporate WeChat is to make customers online and corporate assets rather than personal assets of employees.

Enterprise private domain traffic refers to users in certain closed spaces such as WeChat groups and WeChat personal accounts that the enterprise can reach and use for free and freely. Managing the company's private domain traffic well can prevent the loss of old users and make it easier to penetrate through activities and establish emotional brand relationships with customers. At the same time, it also helps to shape the brand, allowing customers to experience the company's services up close, enhancing word-of-mouth awareness of the brand and creating a superimposed impact. Strictly speaking, private domain traffic is not a tool, but a mechanism, a way of thinking, and a comprehensive set of operations.

As a new generation of cosmetics brand that is rising strongly, Perfect Diary has successfully captured the needs of the young market, established more accurate, direct and in-depth communication with young users, and leveraged a series of sincere and creative marketing actions such as celebrity endorsements, IP collaborations, and KOL matrix communications to achieve the integration of product, effect and sales.

Let’s take a look at how Perfect Diary cleverly uses collaboration:

IP co-branding: Xu Yiwei co-branded makeup gift box [Oriental Poppy] in October 2017, Masha Ma Paris Fashion Week show gift box in September 2018;

KOL collaboration: July 2020 Cheng Peng co-branded [Artist Limited Edition] White Fatty Series, July 2020 Li Jiaqi co-customized [Feather Satin] Pressed Powder; Image collaboration: February 2020 Li Jiaqi's dog Never co-branded City Hunter Animal Eyeshadow Palette, April 2020 Sanrio Family co-branded long-lasting loose powder;

Cross-border collaborations: Oreo co-branded Milk Skin Cushion in March 2020, 1664 co-branded Bistro Lip Glaze in May 2020;

Looking back at Perfect Diary’s history of external collaborations, we can find that Perfect Diary’s collaboration partners can be divided into three categories based on their development stages:

Phase 1: In the early stage of brand reputation building, we launched joint products related to fashion weeks, laid the theme of fashion exploration, and defined the brand as an Asian fashion symbol developed after drawing experience from European and American styles;

The second stage: the brand explosion period, cross-border cultural and creative IP and co-branded KOL launch single products, so that each new product has other meanings besides the product. The promotion of beauty products by KOLs is mainly reflected in their personal homepages and fan interactions, which have the dual effects of professional endorsement and real-name recommendation. For Perfect Diary, which is in its early stages, it has played a role in rapidly expanding its popularity.

The third stage: the brand continues to grow, with popular joint ventures and trendy IPs. Use mature image collaborations to achieve the effect of superimposing consumer memories, grab the image bonus of its own automatic traffic while promoting new products, give each series of image products a stronger story, which is conducive to reaching young consumers and improving the brand index.

Fashion and beauty are inseparable. Perfect Diary has won numerous industry-renowned awards since its establishment. While continuously enhancing its brand power, it also uses award-winning content and lists as endorsement content for public and private domain marketing, achieving a complementary effect.

2018 ELLE Beauty Star Emerging Brand

2018 Rayli Beauty Awards - The most popular mascara sold out of stock

Won two awards at the 2019 Tmall Golden Makeup Awards: [Foundation of the Year] and [Innovative Product of the Year]

2020 WWD Beauty Inc x MEIYA Beauty Awards International Beauty Industry Awards "New Brand of the Year Award"

In 2020, Perfect Diary Explorer 12-color Eyeshadow Palette 02 Tiger Palette won the ELLE Beauty Star Creative Cross-border Strength Award, and the China National Geographic 16-color Eyeshadow Palette won the Internet Popularity Award

In the 2020 Tmall Golden Makeup Award, Perfect Diary won the [2020 Pioneer New Brand], Explorer 12-Color Eyeshadow won the annual TOP single product, the King of Cost-effective Matte Lip Glaze won the [Best Lipstick of the Year], and [Classic Little Black Lid Liquid Foundation] won the Best Foundation of the Year. In 2020, it won the second Tmall Super ONE2020 China Brand Digital Innovation Award-New Business Super Influence Award

…

From public domain investment to the privatization of public domain traffic and then to brand collaboration, Perfect Diary’s traffic growth strategy can be summarized as a “combination punch”: acquire new users and transactions through public domain platforms (Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Douyin, and Bilibili), and then rely on the WeChat ecosystem and Douyin ecosystem to establish a private domain traffic pool and enhance the life cycle value of old customers.

So why do we need to establish a private traffic pool?

Compared to how to acquire new users, retaining and repurchasing old users who have already purchased the product is obviously more important. This is why Perfect Diary has created a private traffic pool.

It is understood that Perfect Diary has hundreds of personal accounts, all of which use the unified persona of "Xiao Wanzi" to the outside world. In other words, it is not the result of the operation of a few people, but a huge team providing operational support to open up the entire chain.

Let’s first analyze how Xiao Wanzi created the “amateur KOL”

In order to get along with users more naturally, Perfect Diary created a brand persona called "Xiao Wanzi" and applied for hundreds of personal WeChat accounts based on this persona. In the role of a beauty and skin care consultant, it added hundreds of thousands of users as WeChat friends. The brand’s fan group is called “Xiao Wanzi Perfect Research Institute” and there are currently thousands of them, with the number of members basically exceeding 200.

Whether it is a WeChat group or a circle of friends, services are provided to users based on the character of Xiao Wanzi, such as answering questions and collecting opinions within the group, posting personal updates in the circle of friends, etc. This approach not only shortens the distance between the brand and users, but also displays the brand's image and products more intuitively. At the same time, the fan group will receive regular reminders of various new products, discounts and offers every day, guiding users to place orders directly on the Wanzi Xinxuan mini program platform to achieve conversions.

Push frequency: 3-6 times a day, push time is 8:30-22:30. The process of getting along with "Xiao Wanzi" is full of warmth, allowing users to truly feel that the person on the other side is a real person, without any mechanical and repetitive routines.

As a customer service representative, Xiao Wanzi can be sweet or salty. Not only is she good-looking, she is also a beauty expert. Her signature expresses how she positions herself: "An unknown funny person who will die if she doesn't put on makeup." She is selfless and is always willing to share good things when she comes across them. She also often checks in at popular tourist spots and chats with everyone about weekends, food and other daily things. She is like a warm and emotional good friend who stays by your side.

Daily circle of friends: "Come and see what precious color I found today!" She is exquisite and often visits popular places. On a warm afternoon, she has a cup of afternoon tea and posts a few beautiful photos, generously captioning: "Today I checked in retro style and accidentally found a store that is perfect for taking photos."

It should be noted that the friend circles of various WeChat accounts are not mechanically synchronized, but have certain differences. This means that Perfect Diary has the ability to segment users within private domain traffic, that is, to display content in a differentiated manner based on user interests. This refined operation method is undoubtedly another powerful tool to increase paid conversions.

After a while, her fans completely trusted her, called her "Little Sister Wanzi", and actively recommended the new eye shadows, lipsticks, blushes...

Xiao Wanzi's potential is reflected in the creation of an amateur KOL. She has established the persona of a "personal beauty consultant" through highly active texts, makeup review pictures and professional tutorials, allowing users to feel that the person communicating with her is a living person who is professional and trustworthy in the field of makeup.

It is reported that Xiao Wanzi also has a "good sister" - Xiao Meizi

The two IPs mainly correspond to the two basic links for brands to obtain "private domain traffic":

Online: Red envelope cards with passwords provided when purchasing products on various e-commerce platforms – PerfectDiary service account – Xiao Wanzi personal account – Wanmei Research Institute WeChat group

Offline: BA guidance and gift benefits in various pop-up stores and physical stores – Xiao Meizi’s personal account – Perfect Diary Member Mall Xiao Cheng – Perfect Diary Research Institute WeChat group

"Xiao Wanzi" is mainly aimed at users who are accustomed to online shopping. "Xiao Meizi" is mainly aimed at users who have visited physical stores. The two take turns to divide the work and cooperate within the community to manage user retention and stimulate repeat purchases.

So how does Xiao Wanzi use refined community operations to further establish connections with users and guide them to place orders and repurchase?

After adding "Xiao Wanzi", users will receive an invitation to join a group, and the group name is uniformly named "Xiao Wanzi Playful Research Institute" - in this way, thousands of WeChat groups are generated.

Let’s take a look at what users can get by joining the group:

① Sharing of practical information: "Xiao Wanzi Perfect Research Institute" has a lot of practical makeup sharing, which is very necessary for makeup novices. There will also be new product releases, live makeup and lucky draws, usually starting at 8 am and lasting until about 12 am. Content is released every 30 minutes to 1 hour, with about 8 pieces of content each time, and continuous activities are carried out to attract users' attention.

②Interaction: The most important interaction in the community is the session called "easy talk". Xiaomei will throw a topic into the group every day to arouse discussion, and then the young ladies will express their opinions. Then the topic will continue to extend, and everyone will share their own experiences, which really brings a sense of value to other people in the community.

③ Create fan-friendly benefits: The group and Xiao Wanzi’s circle of friends often launch low-price limited-time flash sales, such as adding 1 yuan to get the second item, or the second item at half price, etc. It can be said that they are very fan-friendly. But the key point is that the welfare activities will not be delayed.

The influence of KOL (personality) + community + media (circle of friends) can be said to be very powerful, because the core of KOL marketing is to connect brands and users, and through high-quality content and their own charm, make users trust the brand and become loyal consumers of the brand.

Perfect Diary also achieved “fission and new customer acquisition” through the WeChat ecosystem. In fact, many people are familiar with the gameplay, which is the model of "share to get coupons, both parties can get them".

Pinduoduo, Luckin Coffee and others have gained a large number of incremental users in a short period of time through this method. Perfect Diary added this function to its mini program during the warm-up event on the eve of its 3rd anniversary store celebration. It can be inferred that Perfect Diary has retained enough active users in the mini program, but user growth has entered a plateau period, so it is attracting new users in this way.

A review of Perfect Diary's private domain traffic strategy shows that WeChat is currently the most convenient channel for businesses to reach consumers through the mobile Internet. Through WeChat account + official account + group + mini program, it can fully carry most of the interactions between brand merchants and consumers. Moreover, the system based on the brand merchants' own mini programs can ensure that all data belongs to the merchants themselves, and merchants can make good use of data to tap into more commercial value.

Speaking of this, have you ever thought about why private domain traffic has always existed, but suddenly became popular this year?

From Taobao to Weibo, from Douyin to WeChat, even ordinary businesses are discussing how to build a "private traffic pool" to achieve the goal of traffic monetization. In fact, "private domain traffic" is not a new thing and has existed for a long time.

In the early days of Taobao's development, some merchants imported customers from Taobao to QQ groups in order to achieve better customer maintenance; later, after the emergence of WeChat, micro-businesses posted photos of Maseratis on their Moments, which are essentially manifestations of private domain traffic.

So, why did private domain traffic suddenly become popular this year?

Some people say that it is because the brands have run out of money, so they spend a little money to place advertisements on WeChat Moments, social networks, and apps; others say that with the changes in media, the brand’s communication paths have also changed, especially with the rise of Perfect Diary, which achieved nearly 50 times sales growth in just 8 months, which makes people believe in the huge value behind "private domain traffic." In other words, no matter how you look at "private domain traffic", the era of "private domain traffic" has arrived!

Because traffic has become more expensive, and everyone is increasingly unable to bear the burden, which means that "public domain traffic" is declining again. Suppose the mall has a daily traffic of 5,000 people, 500 people come into your store every day, and ultimately 50 of them make a transaction. Moreover, these 50 transactions may have been obtained at your expense through promotions and activities. After the transaction is completed, the user will just leave and may never contact you again. If you want to gain new traffic and transactions, you must continue to attract new customers and hold events. You will increasingly find that these public domain traffic has nothing to do with you, is completely uncontrollable, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

For example, Taobao’s customer acquisition cost was around 30 yuan per person in 2013, but by 2017, this figure had skyrocketed to 250 yuan per person. Therefore, even though some Tmall stores have a lot of fans, if they do not buy various through trains and diamond exhibitions, they will still have no traffic and no sales at all. Under such circumstances, merchants all hope to have a traffic pool that they can truly control, use when they want, and enable multiple conversions and repeat purchases, so the demand for private domain traffic is growing.

So what problems can private domain traffic solve?

① Traffic retention problem

The private domain traffic pool cannot solve the problem of where the traffic comes from, but it can solve the problem of how to retain the incoming traffic. In the past, we would use up the incoming traffic all at once, but now we need to deposit it into a traffic pool, such as a personal WeChat account or APP.

The traffic that enters the private traffic pool becomes precisely controllable users, so we must find ways to maintain these users and cultivate them by building a user pool. After the users are cultivated, they will exist in a closed traffic pool. Merchants can conduct deeper user operations in the user pool, build relationships and trust with users, and retain users.

②Increase repurchase and return on investment

Once merchants establish relationships and trust with users, the repurchase rate of existing old users will naturally increase in the operation of the private domain pool. In the private domain pool, products with higher average order value and higher gross profit can also be sold, thereby increasing the average order value and gross profit of old users. If you take good care of old users, you can continue to split them and bring in new users.

For example, clothing merchants (clothing gross profit margin is as high as over 60%) have adopted the following traffic practices in the past two years: purchasing traffic on Taobao, using low-profit products to attract traffic and increase conversion rates, and then depositing this traffic into personal WeChat accounts by adding QR codes to cash back red envelopes or coupons. Through continuous user operations, we sell high-profit products, which leads to repeat purchases and higher conversions. The entire process reduces customer acquisition costs, increases new user conversion rates and average order value, thereby improving return on investment.

③Solve brand stickiness and trust issues

We all know that users’ trust in public domain traffic such as e-commerce and shopping malls is very poor, not to mention brand stickiness. Why is this? Simply put, it is because the time merchants spend communicating and interacting with users is too short, and there is no chance to build trust between them.

For example, when buying soy sauce, many young people like Luhua and Gaga, which are all great. But many elderly people will buy Chubang because it was very popular in their era. Through years of advertising, purchases and usage, Chubang has established strong brand stickiness in the minds of the elderly. If you want to change this stickiness, you need more user reach.

Private domain traffic pool can help merchants solve this problem. By constantly reaching out to users, we build relationships with them and cultivate trust. Through long-term consumption and purchases, users’ stickiness to the brand will become stronger and stronger.

④ Solve the traffic hunger and attract more users

In the past, when we hadn’t established private domain traffic, we wanted to sell new products, but we had no retained users at all. We can only attract traffic through advertising and promotional activities, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy of users, let alone whether users will come. This is a very troublesome problem.

But it’s different now, the users are lying in your traffic pool. Maybe she is in your friend address book, and you can contact her and communicate with her at any time. This solves the problem that there is no public domain traffic in the early stage. At this time, if you provide benefits and good operations, it will be easy to impress users. If you operate successfully, you have established a good relationship with your users. Then congratulations, you can continue to do fission and bring in more incremental users.

Having said so much before, let’s summarize Perfect Diary’s operation of private domain traffic and see what points are worth learning from and reusing.

1. Private domain IP is the core

Perfect Diary has been very successful in building its IP personality. First, it has created a sense of reality. The avatar, Moments cover, Moments content, product posters, etc. all present a unified and real image to the outside world, which has greatly enhanced users' trust in the IP. Second, the IP personality is accurately positioned. The "Xiao Wanzi" personality is positioned as a beauty expert, creating a beauty KOC who loves beauty. This positioning not only meets the needs of the product's target users, but also meets the needs of the product's business, and can enhance the stickiness of the IP personality and its ability to drive business. Third, the sense of value is created. Through various fan benefits + strategy sharing, users are given a strong sense of value, which greatly enhances users' trust and stickiness in the personality.

At the same time, the IP personality runs through the entire "traffic diversion - active retention - conversion link". In the case, the entire Xiao Wanzi private domain traffic operation is carried out around the Xiao Wanzi personality, including mini-programs and activities in the conversion stage. The advantage of this is that it can empower the improvement of efficiency in each operational link of the business through the trust of the IP personality, and at the same time, it can also empower the IP personality to occupy the mind of the user through the design of each operational link. In Xiao Wanzi’s circle of friends and community, he will also write letters to fans on special holidays and times to show emotional care, making users feel that the character is not just a “seller”, which greatly enhances the user’s information and stickiness to the character.

Perfect Diary also enhances its personality in the minds of new users by increasing interactions and first-time value feedback. When a new user becomes a friend for the first time, Xiao Wanzi will first state that he is not a robot, then give the user a reward immediately, and then give the user an opportunity to interact with him after each conversation. The more conversations and interactions, the greater the user's impression of the character, which is worth learning from.

2. Use social media to leverage private domain traffic

Perfect Diary’s operating process is to direct users from e-commerce platforms to the WeChat ecosystem, transfer traffic from the public domain to the private domain, and ultimately achieve re-conversion through the community.

The community can not only cultivate a group of loyal fans, but also continuously convert them, forming a traffic pool that belongs to Perfect Diary. Under the current trend of consumption upgrading, users' consumption patterns have changed greatly, with more emphasis on a sense of participation and experience. How to mobilize users' enthusiasm has become increasingly important. Perfect Diary’s community operation model has brought it closer to consumers, enhanced users’ intimacy, trust, and loyalty to the brand, and achieved precise marketing and refined operations for users themselves.

What kind of rules can we summarize from Perfect Diary’s operational cases?

① The core of private domain traffic is the trust between users and operators, and trust can reduce transaction costs. Therefore, brands need to determine the core value of the product and obtain transaction opportunities through operational means.

We cannot think about "squeezing users" from the beginning. We first need to make concessions and benefits to target users, attract them, gain their favor, build trust, and even pay for it ourselves. More importantly, through refined operational management and a systematic conversion closed loop, we can achieve subsequent high conversion, high fission, high reputation, and high repurchase, thereby achieving automatic and stable user growth. User lifetime value and communication recommendations are the key.

② Simply attracting new customers cannot bring sustained growth momentum. Only by retaining old customers through reasonable means can long-term benefits be achieved. Therefore, using WeChat to build your own private domain traffic is a cost-effective way.

③ "Adding friends" is only the first step in building private domain traffic. We also need to continuously publish content in the form of WeChat groups, Moments, etc. to keep users paying attention and establish deep connections with users through manual services. Only if you build a good personal image and share a lot of useful information, will there be conversions when you post advertisements.

④ When dealing with private domain traffic, we cannot put all users together and operate them in the same way. We need to stratify users, divide them into levels, and provide different operating methods for different levels. For now, private domain traffic operations under the WeChat ecosystem are still the mainstream.

WeChat official accounts are used to create content; personal WeChat accounts are used to retain users, enhance stickiness, and deeply promote conversions; WeChat communities are used to manage users in layers and promote interactive transactions; mini programs can be used to graft products and carry out user fission.

Perfect Diary also has products with extremely high cost-effectiveness and a huge DTC private domain scale. DTC refers to brands and product manufacturers promoting and selling directly to consumers, eliminating any intermediate channels such as agents, distributors, and third-party channels.

One of the biggest differences between DTC brands and traditional retailers is that they are committed to maintaining long-term relationships with their customers, not just a one-time sale. Perfect Diary sells directly on its own website, eliminating the price difference of middlemen. This leaves more profit space for the brand itself, making it more competitive in both product pricing and cost.

Interact with consumers in real time on the website and establish an online consumer community. Brands can directly reach customers and do customer operations and management more directly. In addition, in this process, the various data collected by Perfect Diary through its own website or stores can help brands better optimize their products, services and experiences. So for merchants, how to become a DTC brand?

The key to entry: product competitiveness

Having competitive products is the primary condition for emerging DTC brands to break into the beauty products market in an increasingly transparent information environment.

Surrounded by an overwhelming amount of sharing posts, review videos, and promotional images and texts, today's consumers have more or less mastered the professional knowledge related to beauty products. In the consumption process, they no longer blindly pursue big brands and high prices, but tend to be more rational and pay attention to their real personal needs.

High cost performance

By reducing outsourcing in R&D, marketing, operations, terminals and other links and actively compressing the premium space, Perfect Diary's extremely high product strength and consumer-friendly prices have achieved high cost-effectiveness of high-quality products. Products that meet consumers' rational needs promote the building of user word-of-mouth, and then attract more attention through sharing and promotion on social platforms.

Appearance is everything

DTC beauty brands find it difficult to compete with traditional brands in terms of product richness. They usually adopt a more focused approach and focus on creating popular products. Each product has a certain reputation, and the simplification of product lines also makes it easier for consumers to make quick decisions. For example, Perfect Diary’s Explorer 12-color eyeshadow has a very beautiful appearance, and today’s consumers are willing to pay for appearance.

Key to the conversation: social marketing

In terms of private domain traffic operations, Perfect Diary has taken a unique path. As e-commerce platforms and logistics systems are relatively immature, Perfect Diary mainly sells its products through its official website, directly establishing a brand community on the website for consumers to discuss and cultivate its own KOLs.

my country's DTC beauty brands rely more on e-commerce platforms for sales and build private traffic pools in the WeChat ecosystem. With the help of WeChat mini-programs, brands can obtain consumer information, establish online shopping malls, and shorten the purchase path; due to its extremely high frequency of use, WeChat message push has become a more direct and effective method; with the launch of WeChat for Business, DTC beauty brands can also become WeChat friends with consumers, display product information in the form of Moments, and interact in the chat box. For example, Perfect Diary launched the virtual BA images of Xiao Wanzi and Xiao Meizi, and communicated directly with consumers on WeChat.

The driving force of growth: data empowerment

Carry out refined customer operations, achieve rapid fission growth through potential and existing customers, monitor data in real time and dynamically, use data to empower better service to users, and provide users with the most suitable and personalized products and experiences. At the same time, this experience can help brands increase sales and customer satisfaction.

For Perfect Diary, a DTC beauty brand rooted in the soil of the Internet, digitalization is engraved in its genes, and data provides the driving force for its rapid growth.

In the end, the core of private domain traffic operation is the trust between users and operators, and trust can reduce transaction costs. Therefore, brands need to determine the core value of the product and obtain transaction opportunities through operational means. More importantly, through refined operational management and a systematic conversion closed loop, we can achieve subsequent high conversion, high fission, high reputation, and high repurchase, thereby achieving automatic and stable user growth. User lifetime value and communication recommendations are the key.

In the future, competition in consumer goods, retail, or e-commerce will all enter an era of scramble for existing users. In this era, every one of your customers is being fought over by other Taobao stores, Douyin and Kuaishou short video platforms, Xiaohongshu and Weibo celebrities, Pinduoduo and other social e-commerce platforms. The sooner you can establish a private traffic pool for your store, the more proactive you will be in the battle for existing users. Because private domain users belong to you and are stored in your personal WeChat account and WeChat groups, it is difficult for others to snatch them away.

Among them, beauty products, cosmetics, functional products, purchasing agents, beauty tools, maternal and child products, milk powder, diapers, food, pets, etc. have factors such as high frequency of new products, high repurchase, high gross profit, low and medium customer orders, content dissemination, and service extensibility, and are more suitable for building private domain traffic for their own stores.

Author: Tao Xiaokai

Source: Tao Xiaokai (pptnote)